44 SEPTEMBER 2019 scca.comSPONSORED EDITORIAL

Like the crash helmets, seatbelts, and fire-retardant race suits that came before,
the head and neck restraint
has become de facto across
all forms of auto racing. Today,
a professional driver wouldn’t
think about strapping into the
cockpit without one, any more
than they would go without their
gloves, regardless of whether the
use of a head and neck restraint
is compulsory. And, it’s for a
good reason: They save lives.

Over the years, safety
equipment has been created to
answer the needs of the time.

Early on, drivers were thrown
around and even ejected from
their cars upon impact, and that
gave rise to seatbelts. In the late

1960s through the ’70s, fire was a
prevalent danger, which coincided
with significant advancements in
fire-retardant apparel of which
Stand 21 was at the forefront. By
the mid-1980s, drivers were safely
ensconced in their cockpits and
fires of the kind that engulfed a
car were rare. Now a new form of

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Patrick Jacquemart died of
such an injury during a sports
car race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car
Course in 1983. It was then that
his teammate, Jim Downing,
approached his brother-in-law Dr.

Robert Hubbard, a biomechanicalengineer who had worked withcrash test dummies for GeneralMotors, for help on developing adevice to reduce the risk of suchan injury. It took nearly a decade,but the pair eventually createdthe head and neck supportknown now as the HANS Device.

Adoption of the device wasslow among professional drivers,and the original cost of thedevice was high. It took a stringof fatalities among some of thebiggest names in the sport thatbegan with Ayrton Senna andRolland Ratzenberger in Mayof 1994 through the death ofDale Earnhardt Sr. in 2001 to